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Marlborough Apartments National Historic Site of Canada

570 Milton Street, Montréal, Quebec, H2X, Canada

Formally Recognized: 1990/11/16

Queen Anne style apartment block in Montréal; Parks Canada / Parcs Canada 1992, HRS 319
Brick
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Other Name(s)

n/a

Links and documents

Construction Date(s)

1900/01/01

Listed on the Canadian Register: 2004/10/15

Statement of Significance

Description of Historic Place

Marlborough Apartments National Historic Site is a four-storey, red brick, Queen Anne Revival-style apartment building located at 570 Milton Street, Montréal. Official recognition covers the legal property at the time of designation (1990).

Heritage Value

Marlborough Apartments was designated a national historic site in 1991 as a fine example of the Queen Anne Revival style and turn-of-the-century apartment design.

The heritage value of this site resides in its illustration of the Queen Anne Revival style as used for apartment building design at the turn of the twentieth century in Canada.

The Marlborough Apartments was designed by Taylor and Gordon, architects, and built in 1900. Queen Anne Revival was a popular motif for luxurious domestic architecture (both houses and apartments) across Canada in the 1870-1914 period. The key to successful Queen Anne Revival apartment design is conception of the building as a unified whole, much like a large house. Marlborough Apartments is one of the few Queen Anne apartment buildings that has survived in Canada.

Source: HSMBC Minute, November 1990

Character-Defining Elements

Elements which characterize the heritage value of this building include:
- The compact and slightly assymmetrical, rectangular massing of the building organized vertically in 3 irregular bays, each with a distinctive roofline;
- the footprint of the building with its U-shaped interior courtyard;
- the allusion to classical proportions in the design (3 vertical bays, regular fenstration disposition but not size, matching end bays which use 2nd and 3rd storey bay windows on the building edge to create the allusion of pillars, the focus on a prominent central arched door set in a well-sculpted enclosure beneath a shaped pediment);
- the Dutch influence in the selection of ornamentation (shaped gables and pediment; centrepiece details of the main entrance);
- the rich contrasts in material colours and textures (stone foundation, smooth sculpted stone entrance, textured red brick, smooth wood on projecting bays, use of ornamental iron balcony rails);
- its setting in a treed, residential area.

Recognition

Jurisdiction

Federal

Recognition Authority

Government of Canada

Recognition Statute

Historic Sites and Monuments Act

Recognition Type

National Historic Site of Canada

Recognition Date

1990/11/16

Historical Information

Significant Date(s)

n/a

Theme - Category and Type

Expressing Intellectual and Cultural Life
Architecture and Design

Function - Category and Type

Current

Historic

Residence
Multiple Dwelling

Architect / Designer

Taylor and Gordon

Builder

n/a

Additional Information

Location of Supporting Documentation

National Historic Sites Directorate, Canadian Inventory of Historic Building Documentation Centre, 5th Floor, Room 525, 25 Eddy Street, Hull, Quebec

Cross-Reference to Collection

Fed/Prov/Terr Identifier

648

Status

Published

Related Places

n/a

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